Are We Living in the 21st Century or the 11th? Male Witch to be executed on Thursday

Lebanese father sentenced to death for 'witchcraft' in Saudi Arabia. Execution may take this Thursday.

His crime? Telling television viewers that things might turn out well for them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/family-pleads-for-return-of-father-sentenced-to-death-for-witchcraft-1835051.html

Only in Saudi Arabia: Young Woman arrested for...driving.

JEDDAH, (Arab News) : Police arrested a woman in her twenties while driving her family’s car in the Aziziah district, a security source said Thursday.

The source said that police took the woman to the police station where she was released after her parents paid bail.

She will have to be brought to the station for further investigations, according to police spokesman Col. Misfar Al-Joaed. “Police stopped the woman after noticing her driving in the Aziziah district and took her for questioning,” he told Al-Madinah newspaper.

Saudi Woman Facing Death Penalty for 'Witchcraft'

AN AMERICAN civil liberties group has written an open letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, urging him to pardon a woman sentenced to death for witchcraft under Sharia law.

Fawza Falih was condemned to death by a court in the town of Quraiyat after confessing under interrogation to having used sorcery to bewitch people. Witchcraft is not a crime under the Saudi penal code, however Sharia, or Muslim religious law, forbids its practice.

“The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like ‘witchcraft’ underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations,” the Middle East Director of the New York based NGO, Human Rights Watch, Joe Stork said on Feb 14.

“Fawza Falih’s case is an example of how the authorities failed to comply even with existing safeguards in the Saudi justice system.” Human Rights Watch has urged King Abdullah to pardon Falih, arguing that her confession was coerced, the legal proceedings flawed, and the ‘crime’ not one recognized under law.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police, the Muttawa, arrested Falih in 2006, and after 35 days’ detention and interrogation, she signed a statement confessing to having been a witch. However, at trial Falih repudiated her confession, saying it had been extracted under torture. Human Rights Watch also charged the Saudi woman’s trial was flawed, alleging misconduct on the part of the judge and prosecutor.

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Saudis Nix Valentines Picks

Valentine’s gifts, cards, and red roses were banned today by religious police in Saudi Arabia. Store owners and workers were ordered to remove all red items and wrapping paper from their shelves.

Valentine’s Day is considered as being un-Islamic, along with a few other annual celebrations, so the authorities prohibit its commemoration. The religious police also state that Valentine’s Day encourages forbidden relationships between men and women outside of marriage, which is punishable by law.

Some Saudis, however, surreptitiously celebrate the event by ordering flowers and gifts weeks in advance of the ban. The store owners make deliveries in the middle of the night or early morning to avoid suspicion.

Some Islamic mullahs have also written prohibitive statements concerning Valentine’s Day. The following example comes from Pakistan:

Muslims should avoid celebrating this occasion by:

1- Not expressing joy and happiness on this occasion.

2- Not exchanging red roses, which represent the ‘spiritual love’ of the pagans or the ‘love’ of the Christians. Hence it is known to them as the Feast of Lovers.

3- Not sending greeting cards as some of their cards have pictures of “Cupid” (a child with two wings carrying bows and arrows). This was the god of love of the pagan Romans.

4- Not exchanging words of love and desire in the cards or verbally. Some of the cards contain the words ‘be my Valentine’. This is the Christian concept of this festival after they adopted from the pagan Romans.

5- Not attending dance parties with mixed gatherings.

I guess they don’t know how much fun they are missing…

Blogging Can Get You Arrested

So Much for Freedom: Saudi Arabian blogger arrested

From BBC World News

Saudi officials revealed on Tuesday that they had detained leading blogger Fouad al-Farhan. BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy looks at the influence and aims of the country's more than 500 bloggers.

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